The wait for a table in Eric Mamula’s dark basement pizza joint was 25 minutes one recent sunny Friday afternoon. Vacationers craving something sweet were cramming into Rachel Hahn’s tiny cookie store for a “Cookie Dough Delight.” A few blocks away, about 15 people waited in line at Alex LaMarca’s outdoor crepe stand.

With spring-breakers crowding the slopes and just weeks left before the end of the season, Colorado’s 26 ski resorts are on pace to meet – if not beat – last year’s record of 12.53 million skier visits.

With the average skier spending $210 a day, according to RRC Associates of Boulder, that translates to roughly $2.6 billion in economic impact.

Buoyed by good snow, great national press, strong real estate sales, a wider variety of activities and more terrain, ski resorts are attracting bigger crowds and filling local cash registers.

At Downstairs at Eric’s, a popular 17-year-old pizza restaurant here, business is up more than 5 percent this past winter. March sales alone have equaled the restaurant’s total sales for the entire 1990-91 ski season.

“It’s insane,” Mamula said. “It’s another record-breaking year not only for us, but for the town too.”

A few blocks down at Crêpes à la Carte, owner LaMarca said the growing skier traffic is helping him finance a second stand he plans to open in Boulder this spring.

“Skier visits dictate our business,” she said. “We don’t have the space to accommodate all the people in here.”

Through Feb. 28, traffic at state ski areas was up 1.4 percent from last year, according to industry trade group Colorado Ski Country USA. The volume has grown for a number of reasons, experts say, including the addition of resort amenities that appeal to destination visitors and technological advances in equipment that help baby boomers keep skiing longer.

The state’s snow conditions have also been reliable, while other regions have suffered in recent winters, said Nolan Rosall, president of RRC Associates.

“The weather factor is hard to ignore in this industry,” he said. “Colorado’s high elevation and much more consistent snow gives us a strong competitive advantage.”

The recent explosion of mountain real estate development – including new base villages under construction at Crested Butte Mountain Resort and Snowmass – has also helped grow a base of faithful skiers, said analyst Ford Frick of Denver-based BBC Research & Consulting.

“It builds in loyalty. You’re a lot less likely to go skiing in Utah if you own a home in Breckenridge,” he said. “An increasing amount of skier visits are coming out of the growing residence base in the mountains.”

The weaker U.S. dollar also has drawn more international skiers to Colorado than in past seasons, and Europe’s dismal snow this past winter has helped continue that trend, said Colorado Ski Country spokeswoman Molly Cuffe.

“We’ve been fortunate to gain some incremental business out of that,” she said.

But growing skier numbers can also cause problems. Skyrocketing home values in resort communities such as Vail and Aspen have locals concerned that they are being priced out, for example. And overcrowded highways can discourage Front Range skiers and ‘boarders from driving to Western Slope resorts.

To be successful, resorts depend on a mix of local skiers – who have become reliant on deeply discounted season passes – and destination skiers who come ready to spend big bucks.

The ideal guest for destination resorts such as Telluride and Steamboat is the Trebino family of four from The Woodlands, Texas, who spent about $8,000 on a recent six-day vacation in Breckenridge.

“You can do it for less, but we think it’s worth it to have the private lessons and whatnot,” Robin Trebino said. “It’s a great vacation because we’re all doing something together. We’ll definitely be coming back.”

Many agree that this season’s momentum has been dampened by the winter blizzards that shut down Interstate 70 and Denver International Airport during peak times such as Christmas and Presidents Day.

“There were several events that were Mother Nature at her worst,” said Matt Sugar, spokesman for Copper Mountain and Winter Park Resort.

Traffic numbers through Feb. 28 at Aspen Skiing’s four resorts were down 2.5 percent from last season, affected in large part by air-travel snafus, according to spokesman Jeff Hanle.

An additional 152,129 cars passed through the Eisenhower Tunnel from November through February compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation. In the winter of 2005-06, traffic counts grew by 71,174 cars from the previous season.

And the highway has been closed more often than in previous years. I-70 between Denver and Vail has shut down 69 times since October because of weather and accidents. During the same period in 2005-06, traffic was stopped 52 times.

A Department of Transportation study estimated that Colorado’s mountain communities lose up to $800,000 an hour when I-70 closes at peak times.

Ian Foley of Denver said he got stuck on I-70 for more than five hours while driving from Vail over New Year’s weekend.

“The traffic sucks. Even on a clear day, if you leave the mountains anytime after 2 p.m., you’re going to sit for two or three hours,” he said. “I’ve probably gone up 10 less days this winter because of it.”

With no quick fix on the horizon, the I-70 traffic issue will probably be a headache for years to come, mountain business and resort owners admit.

Once skiers leave the traffic jams behind, many say there’s still plenty of room for everyone on the mountain.

“The slopes are less crowded than I expected,” said Mike Diehl of Houston, Texas.

While spring-breakers are expected through Easter weekend, the key to surpassing last year’s record is keeping the Front Range skiers who may be distracted by a recent streak of warm weather, Cuffe said.

“The big question is, are we able to re-engage the Front Range skier? Or have they decided to move on to other sports like road biking,” she said. “That’s the challenge – making sure they know late March and April are still really great times to ski and snowboard.”

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